” The Environmental Protection Agency has its eyes on pollution from backyard barbecues.

The agency announced that it is funding a University of California project to limit emissions resulting in grease drippings with a special tray to catch them and a “catalytic” filtration system.

The $15,000 project has the “potential for global application,” said the school.

The school said that the technology they will study with the EPA grant is intended to reduce air pollution and cut the health hazards to BBQ “pit masters” from propane-fueled cookers.

Charged with keeping America’s air, water and soil clean, the EPA has been increasingly looking at homeowners, especially their use of pollution emitting tools like lawn mowers.

The school is proposing two fixes to reduce emissions from barbecues. First, they want to cut back on grease flare-ups. The idea: “A slotted and corrugated tray is inserted immediately prior to meat flipping, and removed immediately after. This short contact time prevents the tray from over-heating and volatilizing the collected grease. This collected grease will then drip off into a collection tray and can be used at the pit master’s discretion.” “

” A federal appeals court has ruled against environmentalists who are trying to force the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate spent lead bullets and lead shot used in hunting and shooting sports.

In a decision favorable to gun enthusiasts, the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said Tuesday that environmental groups have suggested no way in which EPA could regulate spent lead bullets and shot without also regulating cartridges and shells.

The Toxic Substances Control Act exempts cartridges and shells from regulation.”

” The Obama administration is cramming like a college student trying to study for a final exam, publishing more than 1,200 new regulations in the last 15 days alone, according to data from Regulations.gov.

Energy and environment rules are the biggest category, with 139 published by the federal government in the last 15 days, according to Regulations.gov.

One of the most contentious new regulations is the EPA’s coal ash rule. The rule has been criticized by the coal industry and environmental groups — though for entirely different reasons — and has a price tag of up to $20.3 billion. The rule was finalized last Friday.”

” What’s America’s favorite federal agency? Apparently it’s the U.S. Postal Service. Beyond the rate hikes, job cuts, hemorrhaging finances, processing center closures, union tensions and persistent calls for reform, a large majority of people—72 percent—think USPS does an “excellent” or “good” job. That’s a significantly higher rating than the next highest runner up, the FBI, at 58 percent, according to a new Gallup poll assessing American’s perceptions of 13 agencies.

Four of the 13 agencies included in the poll—Postal Service, the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Veterans’ Affairs Department—were rated for the first time.

Perhaps most striking was the fact that two agencies rated lower in Americans’ esteem than the scandal-plagued Internal Revenue Service, which may have the most onerous mission among federal agencies—parting people from their money. While only 41 percent of respondents thought IRS was doing a good to excellent job, fewer thought the Federal Reserve Board or Veterans Administration were doing excellent to good work, 38 percent and 29 percent, respectively. “

” The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) released a report today revealing and piecing together dozens of emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which lay out in detail EPA’s collusion with senior activists within environmentalist pressure groups, and proving the real thinking about the intent behind and impact of EPA’s “climate” regulations.

Far from the required recusing to avoid the appearance of a conflict, EPA filled its senior political ranks with green pressure group activists, continuing their life’s work and coordinating with former colleagues from their new positions in government. These emails show the groups sharing jokes about EPA assurances that it isn’t waging a war on coal, and gloating about the courts serially siding with EPA as it rewrites federal environmental law. More important, they show the special role and undue influence these relationships provided, the very sort of influence the Obama Administration once disavowed.

“ EPA is permitted to regulate; but, not these people, not this way,” said E&E Legal’s Chris Horner who filed the FOIA requests and related litigation which produced most of the emails set forth in the report, which also includes and discusses many emails extracted from EPA by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) adding context to E&E Legal’s findings.

The report details many instances of lobbyists for “green” special interest groups helping steer EPA regulations and permitting decisions, and providing advocacy materials for use by former colleagues now inside the EPA who then dutifully circulate the advocacy materials to colleagues. The collusion ranges from orchestrating public hearings, the EPA and Sierra Club teaming to write a U.S. Senator’s public statement on the shared agenda, and even specifically targeting individual power plants which green groups wanted to prevent under any new EPA standards.”

” The revelation that Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Marilynn Tavenner did not retain her e-mails means that more than 20 witness in the Obama administration to lose or delete e-mails without notifying Congress, according to the top House investigator.

“ The Obama administration has lost or destroyed e-mails for more than 20 witnesses, and in each case, the loss wasn’t disclosed to the National Archives or Congress for months or years, in violation of federal law,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said of Tavenner’s lost e-mails.

“ It defies logic that so many senior Administration officials were found to have ignored federal record keeping requirements only after Congress asked to see their e-mails,” he continued. “Just this week, my staff followed up with HHS, who has failed to comply with a subpoena from ten months ago. Even at that point, the administration did not inform us that there was a problem with Ms. Tavenner’s e-mail history. Yet again, we discover that this administration will not be forthright with the American people unless cornered.” “

It appears, however, that a regional office has reached a new low: Management for Region 8 in Denver, Colo., wrote an email earlier this year to all staff in the area pleading with them to stop inappropriate bathroom behavior, including defecating in the hallway.

In the email, obtained by Government Executive, Deputy Regional Administrator Howard Cantor mentioned “several incidents” in the building, including clogging the toilets with paper towels and “an individual placing feces in the hallway” outside the restroom.”

” Does the federal government have any systems at all to back its email archives? Maybe not, because the Environmental Protection Agency is now using the same excuse as the IRS is using in response to a Congressional subpoena: the computer ate our homework.

In a hearing Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said the agency was still trying to recover the emails from a now-retired employee who was involved in a controversial EPA evaluation of a proposed mine project in Alaska‘s Bristol Bay.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., asked McCarthy: “Were all of his emails preserved according to the Federal Records Act or was a law violated?”

McCarthy responded: “I think we have notified the appropriate authorities that we may have some emails that we cannot produce that we should have kept. I do not know yet whether we can recover all of these or not.” She added that later: “We are not sure where the failure came from and what it is attributed to.” “

” Two different government agencies tried to convince Congress and the American people this week that emails disappear into thin air. We didn’t believe it when we heard it from the IRS and I’m not inclined to believe the EPA’s excuses. The Federal Records Act is very clear. This is either willful ignorance on the part of the EPA or gross incompetence. I hope the EPA will follow through and turn over the relevant information it promised to the Oversight Committee months ago.” “

” Lawmakers are up in arms over an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal that they fear could give federal officials expansive new powers over private property and farmland.

The EPA is seeking to redefine what bodies of water fall under the agency’s jurisdiction for controlling pollution. The scope of the final Clean Water Act (CWA) rule is of critical importance, as any area covered would require a federal permit for certain activities.

The rule is facing a groundswell of opposition from lawmakers, who fear the EPA is engaged in a “land grab” that could stop farmers and others from building fences, digging ditches or draining ponds.

More than 260 lawmakers, spanning both chambers and parties, have come out against the EPA’s action.”

” A group of 231 members of the House recently sent a letter to the EPA and the Army Corps asking them to withdraw the regulation. The group included almost the entire House Republican conference, as well as 19 Democrats.

“ Although your agencies have maintained that the rule is narrow and clarifies CWA jurisdiction, it in face aggressively expands federal authority under the CWA while bypassing Congress and creating unnecessary ambiguity,” the lawmakers wrote.

The proposed rule is eight years in the making, and aims toclear up ambiguity in federal regulations that the EPA says was created by a series of Supreme Court decisions. “

” The EPA says the new rule — dubbed “Waters of the United States,” or “WOTUS” — would not massively expand its authority, nor would it create powers over back yards, wet spots or puddles.

“ The rule would place features such as ditches, ephemeral drainages, ponds (natural or man-made, prairie potholes, seeps, flood plains, and other occasionally or seasonally wet areas under federal control,” the House lawmakers wrote in their letter.

The Senate also has a significant faction fighting the EPA’s action. Thirty Republican senators signed onto a bill introduced this week that would prevent the EPA and the Army Corps from moving forward.”

” As a U.S. House committee looked at allegations that a special homeland security unit within the Environmental Protection Agency was blocking investigations by the EPA’s Inspector General, lawmakers also veered into other internal probes at that agency, demanding to know why it is so difficult to get rid of federal workers involved in on-the-job misconduct.

” When we have an employee who is looking at over 600 porn sites in a four day period – and it’s there in black and white – fire them!” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT).

At the hearing, investigators detailed for lawmakers how a six figure EPA employee had admitted watching large amounts of porn on the job; he remains on the payroll, but his case has been referred to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.

” So this guy is making $125,000, spending two to six hours a day looking at porno,” said Rep. John Mica (R-FL), who was told by officials that the worker had been given performance awards – despite one time spending four straight hours on a website called, “Sadism is Beautiful.”

“How much pornography would it take for an EPA employee to lose their job?” asked a frustrated Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). “

” The Environmental Protection Agency has been conducting dangerous experiments on humans over the past few years in order to justify more onerous clean air regulations.

The agency conducted tests on people with health issues and the elderly, exposing them to high levels of potentially lethal pollutants, without disclosing the risks of cancer and death, according to a newly released government report.

These experiments exposed people, including those with asthma and heart problems, to dangerously high levels of toxic pollutants, including diesel fumes, reads a EPA inspector general report obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The EPA also exposed people with health issues to levels of pollutants up to 50 times greater than the agency says is safe for humans.”

” The FBI raided Bozeman based USA Brass Thursday morning. We were tipped off by a viewer who told us federal agents were on scene by 9a.m. Throughout the morning we saw agents from the FBI, EPA Criminal Division, and Bozeman Police come and go from the Bozeman business.”

Around 12:30 p.m. Agent Bert Marsden identified himself as the resident agent in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Division in Montana. He told NBC Montana agents were expected on scene through the evening, and gave a short statement about the investigation.

” We are investigating alleged violations of environmental law. An investigation takes as long as it takes, and I can’t provide any details as it relates to that,” said Marsden.

USA Brass cleans and resells used ammunition casings. Last fall the Gallatin City-County Health Department reported 22 people, all current or former USA Brass employees showed elevated levels of lead in their blood. In September of 2013 the US Department of Labor cited USA Brass with 10 serious violations and proposed more than $45,000 in penalties and fines.”

” Here’s an interesting fact: Scientists hoping to be published in the journal Science are told in advance that they must agree to make available “all data necessary to understand and assess the conclusions of the manuscript.” The stipulation is commonplace in the scientific and academic communities, where research results must be transparent and reproducible to be credible.

That’s supposed to be the way it is for the federal government, too. Here’s how the policy is described by the Administrative Conference of the United States: Federal officials are expected, to the maximum extent possible, to “identify and make publicly available (on the agency website or some other widely available forum) references to the scientific literature, underlying data, models, and research results that it considered. In so doing, the agency should list all information upon which it relied in reaching its conclusions, as well as any information material to the scientific analysis that it considered but upon which it ultimately did not rely.”

Unfortunately, “secret science” is the norm at the Environmental Protection Agency, according to witnesses at Tuesday’s hearing of a subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. As the committee’s chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, said, “Transparency and independent verification are basic tenants of science and must inform sound environmental policy. When the EPA does not follow these basic steps, it fails in its obligation to the American people and raises suspicions about whether its regulations can be justified.” “

The notion of transparency in government has amounted to nothing but talk in recent years and nowhere is that more evident than in the regulatory morass that is Obama’s EPA . As the Wall Street Journal notes :

” The federal government has no business justifying regulations with secret information. This principle has been supported by two of the president’s own science and technology advisers, John Holdren and Deborah Swackhamer. “The data on which regulatory decisions and other decisions are based should be made available to the committee and should be made public,” said Dr. Holdren in testimony before the committee last year. Executive-branch rules dating to the Clinton administration require that federally funded research data be made publicly available, especially if it is used for regulatory purposes.”

While the rules are plain enough , even for government workers to understand , transparency is difficult if not impossible to come by in the world of the EPA .

” It seems that even wood isn’t green or renewable enough anymore. The EPA has recently banned the production and sale of 80 percent of America’s current wood-burning stoves, the oldest heating method known to mankind and mainstay of rural homes and many of our nation’s poorest residents. The agency’s stringent one-size-fits-all rules apply equally to heavily air-polluted cities and far cleaner plus typically colder off-grid wilderness areas such as large regions of Alaska and the American West.

While EPA’s most recent regulations aren’t altogether new, their impacts will nonetheless be severe. Whereas restrictions had previously banned wood-burning stoves that didn’t limit fine airborne particulate emissions to 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air, the change will impose a maximum 12 microgram limit. To put this amount in context, EPA estimates that secondhand tobacco smoke in a closed car can expose a person to 3,000-4,000 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter.

Most wood stoves that warm cabin and home residents from coast-to-coast can’t meet that standard. Older stoves that don’t cannot be traded in for updated types, but instead must be rendered inoperable, destroyed, or recycled as scrap metal.“

How soon before we lose our fireplaces ? And what of the summer tradition of bonfires and campfires ? When will they come for our B-B-Q grills ?

” Ignoring congressionally-mandated boundaries set in 1905, the Environmental Protection Agency has turned the Wyoming town of Riverton over to two Indian tribes.

In a surprising decision, officials at the EPA, the Department of the Interior and the Justice Department, designated the land the property of the Wind River Tribes, according to The Daily Caller.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead petitioned the EPA to reverse the decision, and vowing not to abide by the order, and pledging to fight it in court if necessary.

“ My deep concern is about an administrative agency of the federal government altering a state’s boundary and going against over 100 years of history and law,” Mead said in a statement. “This should be a concern to all citizens because, if the EPA can unilaterally take land away from a state, where will it stop?” “

The precedent has been set . Through the auspices of the Obama administration Congress has been ruled of no consequence . Now we have State appointed bureaucrats ignoring settled law and the legitimate authority of the legislative branch in pursuit of their own agenda . Rule of law ? What’s that ?

” The EPA’s highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change deserves to go to prison for at least 30 months for lying to his bosses and saying he was a CIA spy working in Pakistan so he could avoid doing his real job, say federal prosecutors.

John C. Beale, who pled guilty in September to bilking the government out of nearly $1 million in salary and other benefits over a decade, will be sentenced in a Washington, D.C., federal court on Wednesday. In a newly filed sentencing memo, prosecutors said that his lies were a “crime of massive proportion” that were “offensive” to those who actually do dangerous work for the CIA.

Beale’s lawyer, while acknowledging his guilt, has asked for leniency and offered a psychological explanation for the climate expert’s bizarre tales.

“ With the help of his therapist,” wrote attorney John Kern, “Mr. Beale has come to recognize that, beyond the motive of greed, his theft and deception were animated by a highly self-destructive and dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior.” Kern also said Beale was driven “to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives … that are fueled by his insecurities.”

The EPA issued a guidance in October saying that since fire hydrants are sometimes used to supply drinking water during emergency situations, they are covered under the Reduction of Lead in Drinking Water Act. Thus, all new fire hydrants installed after Jan. 4, 2014 must be lead-free.”

In a rare instance of bipartisan common sense the Reps in the House threw a monkey wrench into the plans of the enviro-nazis at the EPA to further consolidate their claimed authority over all things H2O related . Once again we are treated to the spectacle of a government agency trying to mandate the use of something that doesn’t even exist .

” While the country is immersed in Obamacare headlines and a congressional tussle over delays and mandates, the Obama administration is stealthily moving toward unprecedented control over private property under a massive expansion of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act authority.

The proposed rule, obtained by the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee in advance of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s testimony at a Thursday oversight hearing, widely broadens the definition of waterways over which the federal government has jurisdiction to as little as a water ditch in a backyard.

The Clean Water Act redefinition of “waters of the United States” would include all ponds, lakes, wetlands and natural or manmade streams that have any effect on downstream navigable waters — whether on public lands or private property.

“The EPA’s draft water rule is a massive power grab of private property across the U.S. This could be the largest expansion of EPA regulatory authority ever,” Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said after seeing the proposal. “If the draft rule is approved, it would allow the EPA to regulate virtually every body of water in the United States, including private and public lakes, ponds and streams.” ”

This kind of regulation by federal fiat must be stopped . It is time for the states to step up and reclaim their authority to govern , conserve and regulate their territories as the people of their states see fit . The further from the people comes the law , the further from justice is the law . If we’ve lost the right to property then we are nothing but serfs . With the Federal government as the Land Barons can the people be anything other than sharecroppers ? We already owe our souls to the company store .

” Through the stroke of a pen, President Obama on Friday used his executive powers to elevate and take control of climate change policies in an attempt to streamline sustainability initiatives – and potentially skirt legislative oversight and push a federal agenda on states.

The executive order establishes a task force of state and local officials to advise the administration on how to respond to severe storms, wildfires, droughts and other potential impacts of climate change. The task force includes governors of seven states — all Democrats — and the Republican governor of Guam, a U.S. territory. Fourteen mayors and two other local leaders also will serve on the task force.

All but three of those appointed are Democrats. The task force will look at federal money spent on roads, bridges, flood control and other projects. It ultimately will recommend how structures can be made more resilient to the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and warming temperatures.”

Note that ALL of his appointees are politicians , and mostly Democratic ones at that , and not a scientist or expert among them . Surely this is the way to come up with accurate , unbiased , effective policy on such a contentious issue as “global warming”, er , climate change .

” Besieged by the Obama administration and its host of new environmental regulations, the U.S. coal industry is beginning to fight back.”

” Thousands of miners and their families will descend on Washington on Tuesday for the “Count on Coal” rally, bringing with them a simple message for the Environmental Protection Agency and other arms of the federal government that seem intent on relegating the fuel to the ash pile of history.

“The message is that there’s a lot of people out there in states that not only mine coal, but rely heavily on coal. There’s a lot of frustration building up at people here in Washington that they aren’t really listening and looking out for them,” said Hal Quinn, president of the National Mining Association, one of the rally’s prime organizers. “It’s a way of life. [Coal miners] are very proud of what they do for this country.” ”

This post gives more detail regarding the closing of power generating facilities and mines under the new Obama EPA regulatory scheme . The list is extensive and growing at an alarming rate :

” Coal-fired power plants and coalmines are going down across the U.S., according to SNL Financial analyses.

Facing tougher federal health-based standards for mercury emissions in 2015, utility companies have been steadily shuttering coal-fired units, with 8,800 megawatts permanently closed in 2012 and another 5,781 megawatts projected to be closed this year.”

We were warned . This is one instance where Obama told the truth.

” Production data from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration shows that mines idled in the first half of 2013 produced a combined 11.4 million tons of coal in 2012.”

It’s only going to get worse , and as energy prices rise so does the cost of EVERYTHING else . It takes energy to produce goods and it takes energy to deliver goods .

” Personnel staying on board would be limited to those involved in public health and safety, including the safe use of hazardous materials and protection of federal property, such as lands, buildings, equipment and research facilities.

Staff will be on hand in the event of emergencies, such as “in the event of a water related incident where the threat to human life or property is imminent,” according to the EPA plan.”

By the Federal government’s own admittance , the EPA is a non-essential agency . ABOLISH IT NOW !!

” The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition alleging that the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its authority by allowing distribution of fuel with 15 percent ethanol, or E15, into the overall supply despite the EPA’s prohibition of E15 use in marine and other engines, Sounding Trade Only reported today.

Having essentially lost the case in court, the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) and other groups will revisit a case aimed at protecting consumers from unwittingly filling tanks with E-15 because the fuel has been shown to be harmful to marine engines and other non-automotive powerplants, according to the report.